Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)

Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)

Yeah, Marilyn Manson’s satanic mutant bogeyman shtick is as tired as the warmed-over sci-fi clichés on his putative concept album Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death), but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a trick or two tucked away in his codpiece. Here, he abandons the glammy slickness of ’98’s Mechanical Animals, upping the brute-force quotient to concoct a pulverizing metallic symphony that makes Rob Zombie sound like elevator music. Rejoice or weep as you see fit — this is the hateful huckster’s most potent effort yet. B